THE 

}ftOVE OF THE ^JXORLD 

A BOOK OF RELIGIOUS MEDITATION 



MARY EMILY CASE 




Vf^&tmii 



NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1892 









Copyright, 1892, by 
The Century Co. 



GIFT 



W '" ' - " ■ 



APR 2 11946 
THE UNARY OF ttNttESS 



THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW-Vi 



TO 

G. 1R- 5. 

ONE WHO HAS TAUGHT ME, BY AN OLD AGE 
BRIGHTER AND MORE FULL OF SIMPLE GLAD- 
NESS AND OF POWER TO HELP THAN ANY YOUTH 
CAN BE, WHAT CHRISTIAN FAITH AND HOPE AND 
LOVE CAN MAKE OF HUMAN LIFE ON EARTH. 



PREFACE 

This book is neither theological nor argu- 
mentative. It is not a systematic treatment of 
any theme, but merely, as is indicated in the 
title, a jotting down of scattered thoughts, 
grouped under more or less appropriate head- 
ings. If to any the word " religious " seem 
misapplied, the writer can only appeal to her 
own strong conviction that there is nothing 
which is not, or may not be, religious, sin only 
excepted. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I The Love of the World n 

II Not Conformed to this World 17 

III The Dandelions 20 

IV A Shallow Optimism 23 

V Gain and Loss 28 

VI Youth and Age 31 

VII In the Orchard 34 

VIII By the Waterfall 36 

IX Joy 38 

X Society 39 

XI Books 43 

XII High and Low 45 

XIII The World Without God 48 

XIV Anthropomorphism 51 

XV Pantheism 53 

XVI The Relation of Religion to 

Facts . 54 

XVII The Breadth of the Command- 
ment 56 

XVIII Redemption 59 

XIX Freedom 61 

XX This Present Evil World 63 

XXI Justice and Mercy 65 

XXII Guidance 68 

7 



Contents 



PAGE 

XXIII The Prayers of the Innocent. 70 

XXIV One of Us 72 

XXV Self-abnegation 75 

XXVI Inasmuch as Ye Did it Not. ... 78 

XXVII Giving 80 

XXVIII Competition 84 

XXIX This World and Another 86 

XXX The Kingdom , 90 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD 



Chapter I. — The Love of the World 

Jesus says : " Ye cannot serve God and 
mammon." " Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures upon earth, where moth and 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break 
through and steal : but lay up for yourselves 
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not 
break through nor steal : for where your 
treasure is, there will your heart be also." 
" And the cares of this world, and the de- 
ceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other 
things entering in, choke the word, and it 
becometh unfruitful." "Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and his righteousness; 
and all these things shall be added unto 
you." John says : " Love not the world, 
neither the things that are in the world. If 
any man love the world, the love of the 



Cbe %ove of tbe liiaorlo 



Father is not in him. For all that is in the 
world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of 
the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the 
Father, but is of the world." I think I un- 
derstand Jesus better. Paul is not the only 
apostle who has written things hard to un- 
derstand. Jesus's word is always easier. Not 
easier to do. No ; hardest of all to do, though 
easiest to know. Though his yoke be easy, 
and his burden light, and his command- 
ments not grievous, yet not with sloth or 
negligence or ease may a man walk his 
way. 

O Master, let me walk with thee 
In lowly paths of service free; 
Tell me thy secret, help me bear 
The strain of toil, the fret of care. 

Only by toil, by patience, by watching, 
and by prayer may we attain that life. Yet 
the conception of it is simple : to serve God 
only, and, as for mammon, to make that 
serve him too; not to lay up treasure of 
earth's goods, but to give and to use them. 
And what is it to serve God ? To follow 
Jesus's footsteps in serving man, to seek first 
his kingdom, the utmost good to all the 



Gbe %ove ot tbe motlt> 



children of our common Father. " And all 
these things shall be added." 

And if some things I do not ask 

In my cup of blessing be, 
I would have my spirit filled the more 

With grateful love to thee. 

And these things that shall be added bring 
cares, which sometimes deceive, and choke 
the word, making it unfruitful. That is our 
fault, not the fault of the things. In love 
God gives the things, and if in love we take 
them at his hand, and in love use and en- 
joy them, then they do not choke the word 
or make it unfruitful. It is not that we 
prize any of God's gifts too highly or en- 
joy them too much, but that we love God 
and man too little — ah, far too little. 

But what does John mean ? " Love not 
the world, neither the things that are in the 
world. If any man love the world, the love 
of the Father is not in him." And he adds 
that " all that is in the world .... is not 
of the Father." I love the world, and the 
things that are in it. I love the beautiful 
world of matter, earth and sky and sea, sun 
and moon and stars, forest and field and 



Gbe %ox>e of tbe TBflorlo 



garden, flower and fruit and living thing. 
I love the world of man, of human society ; 
not man in the positivist, humanitarian sense, 
nor man as a soul to be saved in a so-called 
religious sense; but man in a distinctly 
worldly sense — his thoughts, his feelings, 
his books, his music, his conversation, his 
amusements, good clothes, and good din- 
ners. And what is worse, I keep loving 
them more and more. My simple and direct 
enjoyment of all these things has at least 
doubled in the last ten years. Furthermore, 
I cannot conceive that the things that are in 
the world are not of the Father. How, O 
thou enigmatical apostle, can there be any- 
thing that is not of the Father ? Is it not 
written, " The earth is the Lord's, and the 
fulness thereof"? God made man, made 
his appetites, made the things to satisfy them. 
Surely, then, they are of the Father. There 
is but one thing which is not of the Father. 
That thing is sin. Doubtless it is to the sin 
that is in the world that Paul refers when he 
says, " Be not conformed to this world : but 
be ye transformed by the renewing of your 
mind." Full of sin are those cynical max- 



Gbe %ove of tbe tuaorlo 15 



ims and those hard and selfish ways .which 
prevail so widely among men. It does not 
follow that the things which the world counts 
pleasant and profitable ought not to be 
loved and sought, but only that sin is to be 
shunned, that we are to be on our guard 
against an unloving spirit. Not renuncia- 
tion, but 

A mind to blend with outward life 

While keeping at Thy side. 

Could John mean that it is the sin mixed 
in man's thoughts, feelings, conversation, 
amusements, which one may not love and 
love the Father too ? But nobody really 
loves sin ; we sin for gratification, and from 
lack of purpose to restrain impulse. Does 
he mean merely to say what Jesus says, that 
we must love God most of all, and place his 
kingdom first ? I cannot tell what he means. 
Perhaps, then, if I fix my thought upon 
Jesus's word, which seems so plain and sim- 
ple, and strive ever more earnestly to live 
by that, it will be accounted sufficient. If, 
then, I " find from day to day a nearness to 
my God," if faith is growing easier, hope 
brighter, and love warmer, I will not fear to 



16 Gbe %ovc of tbe TClorlo 



face the fact that day by day and year by 
year the things that are in the world are 
growing dearer to me — not dearer to hoard 
and cling to, but dearer to enjoy. As heart 
and mind deepen and broaden with the years 
under God's discipline, why should not our 
appreciation of all things grow ? His gifts 
are ever new, and they seem ever richer, 
fuller, gladder, more satisfying to the varied 
needs of our many-sided nature. They do 
not turn to ashes for me, do not become to 
me vanity of vanities. Some things, perhaps, 
we may outgrow, but there are more which 
we need to grow up to. " Earthly vanities," 
" vain delusions," " passing shows," " hollow 
mockeries " ? Think, O bold man, before 
thou darest thus to sit in the seat of the 
scornful. Think whether the fault be in the 
things which God made, in the desire for 
them, which desire also he made, or in thine 
own shallow thought and foolish heart, which 
understands neither God nor his gifts. 

" Think less of the things of this earthly 
life, and more of God," say some. The order 
is inverted. Reverse it. Begin at the other 
end. Think more of God. Let that come 



IRot Conformed to tbis Worlo 17 



first. Then, when thy heart is first filled 
with his abiding presence, there will be 
more room, not less, for the things of this 
blessed earthly life. The thought of God 
drives out sin. It drives out nothing else, 
but rather enlarges the heart to reach all 
thoughts possible to man, to hold all joys 
more dear. 



Chapter II. — "Not Conformed to 
this World " 

" Be not conformed to this world : but 
be ye transformed by the renewing of your 
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, 
and acceptable, and perfect will of God." 
There are multitudes of men and women 
who do not form their lives at all. They do 
not choose to obey the will of God or to 
be of use to man, but are dragged hither 
and thither by the impulse of self-gratifica- 
tion. These are the wicked. Some of them 
are criminals, and some are good citizens; 
some are dissolute, some are free from vices; 
some are outcast, some are respectable. In 
3 



is Cbe %ove of tbe TiClorlo 



one thing they are all alike : they are not 
guiding their lives by a steady purpose to 
give, to help, to serve, to do the painful 
right — and that one thing is the essence 
of wickedness. 

These people I love in many ways. Not 
one of them who cannot draw me, even if at 
the same time he repel me. Some have the 
charm of intellect and wit, of polished man- 
ners and graceful ease. Others, who have 
none of these, win by the spell of a strange 
life, yet a life not wholly alien to me, a life 
I have not known but could know. The 
bond of human fellowship is strong. These 
wicked, what are they but my kin, what are 
they but my fellow-sinners ? If I am striv- 
ing after something better, and they are not, 
that is a reason the more for loving them. 
I love them well. I love the things which 
they love, believing them things truly wor- 
thy to be loved. 

Yet I pray God I may not be altogether 
as one of these. Their way of living is not 
noble. A human life not guided by purpose 
is but as the life of the brute. Nay, worse ; 
for noble, spiritual faculties are degraded, 



tflot Conformed to tbis Worlo 19 



enslaved to do the bidding of selfish pas- 
sion — a frightful power which the brutes 
have not. 

The cumulative influence of the life which 
numbers are living together is wonderful. 
When many are living without faith and 
hope and love, then doubt, despair, and 
hatred permeate the common thought and 
feeling, and a standard is formed which has 
a terrible conforming power. Who has not 
felt it — that cold, hard selfishness and cyni- 
cism, that polished insinuation of baseness, 
that stately pride, that easy forgetfulness of 
all who are outside ? 

" Be not conformed." 'T is well that 
the injunction comes from that apostle who 
fought with beasts at Ephesus. We must 
fight, fight unceasingly, with all the strength 
of our soul, and with all the spiritual forces 
which prayer can bring to our aid. Let no 
man think the battle may be won by fleeing 
from the field. Live nobly among those 
who live ignobly, doing the same things 
which they do, but with a difference. Yet 
beware, and yet again beware. It is a 
fearful combat, and with fearful issues, this 



Gbe %ox>e of tbe movib 



struggle in which we are set and which we 
dare not flee. Consider what it is to think 
base thoughts, and ever baser day by day ; 
to have the heart hardening, hardening, till 
not one generous feeling, one noble impulse, 
stirs; an ever narrower, feebler, shallower 
soul, no outlook, no outreaching, no fellow- 
ship with God or man. Oh, fight, my 
soul ! " Be not conformed ! " 



Chapter III. — The Dandelions 

There is a spot by the way, as one walks 
toward the village, where, for a brief time 
in May, the thick, green grass is crowded 
with clusters of enormous dandelions. My 
joy in their gorgeous beauty grows with the 
years. I anticipate them for weeks, and 
when they come they are always larger and 
brighter and more a delight than I had pic- 
tured them. The other day, as I was ex- 
pressing my pleasure in them, my friend 
said : " But how soon they are gone. Is 
it not sad to think how beauty passes ? " 



Cbe BanDelions 



"Yes," I said; "but they will come again." 
Ah, they will come again! That beauty- 
loving, beauty-making power whom we call 
God, and whom Jesus taught us to call 
Father, will never fail. It is the sadness 
that is passing; the eternal verity is joy. 
For God is the eternal foundation, and he 
is the All-father, loving all his creatures. 

And I smiled to think God's goodness flowed 
around our incompleteness, 
Round our restlessness his rest. 

There is a sadness in change and loss; 
. yet who would not have dandelions in May 
and roses in June, and more dandelions 
again the next May, rather than dandelions 
all the year round ? All the losses shall be 
made up ; the sadness is a passing thought. 

For life is ever lord of death, 
And love can never lose its own. 

Life is not to the Christian as it seemed 
to the pagan, one brief, bright spot on a vast, 
black background, a bright spot which must 
be made as intense as possible while it lasted. 
What can be sadder than those exquisite 
odes of Horace in which he pictures the 



Gbe %ove of tbe Tldorlo 



sweet and gentle joys of spring against the 
blackness of a fast on-coming night, unless 
it be those mad, melodious little wine-songs 
called by Anacreon's name ? " Let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die.". Let us 
eat and drink, indeed, for to-morrow we 
live. Eat and drink, not with the feverish 
haste and greed of one who must gratify in 
a moment an infinite longing, but with the 
calm, sweet satisfaction of those who know 
that " in our Father's house there is bread 
enough and to spare." All kinds of joy, 
lower and higher, should grow and not wane, 
ever old and ever new. Why should not the 
bright things pass ? They are not given us 
as possessions to keep and hoard. Only 
dead things can be hoarded. Life is better, 
yea, this fleeting life, ever moving, yet ever 
resting in the bosom of infinite, unchanging 
love and power. 

He who bends to himself a joy 
Does the winged life destroy ; 
But he who kisses the joy as it flies 
Lives in eternity's sunrise. 



B Sballow ©ptimtem 23 



Chapter IV. — A Shallow Optimism 

And what of sorrow ? To say that joy 
is the great and lasting fact, sadness brief 
and passing, is that a shallow optimism ? 
The conception of a never-failing, all-suffi- 
cient happiness as more comprehensive and 
enduring than sorrow in this universe of 
God is optimism indeed, extreme optimism. 
But shallow ? Not necessarily. There is a 
shallow optimism. It has two ways of dis- 
posing of sorrow, to deny its existence or to 
deny its reality. Both these ways are false 
and shallow. Sorrow exists — black, mon- 
strous, frightful. There are the sorrows of 
our common human lot — loss, pain, disease, 
death, anguish of body and of soul. There 
are the sorrows coming more directly from 
man's crime and vice — cruelty, oppression, 
grinding, brutalizing poverty. Nor may we 
take refuge in the second falsehood, that 
sorrow is not real, that pain is matter of in- 
difference, moral acts and states alone having 
any real value. To those who are acquainted 
with grief, this needs no refutation. Sorrow 



24 Gbe %ove of tbe Worlo 



is no sham. It is true, and it is evil. It may 
be productive of good, but it is itself an im- 
mediate and actual evil. Let us not try to 
shut our eyes or to mock our deepest experi- 
ence. There is a cloud, black, real, and, to 
our little selves in the little present, large, 
very large. But open the eyes wider, look 
out more broadly ; the sunlight, after all, is 
a vaster thing than the shadow. " God is 
light, and in him is no darkness at all." The 
Christian is happy; not, like the epicurean, 
by intensifying a brief ray in contrast with a 
vast gloom soon to engulf it, nor like the 
stoic, by denying the real existence of any 
blackness, but by trusting that light alone is 
infinite. Oh, let us never try to be happy 
by contrast or by forgetting ! 

It is not praise 
To call to mind our happier lot, 

To boast bright days 
God-favored, with all else forgot. 

Remember sorrow, but remember also 
God. Carry on thy heart the woes of the 
world, but rest thy heart upon the heart of 
God. 

Deep and dark are the mysteries that 



Sballow ©ptimtsm 25 



hang about the existence of sorrow, and es- 
pecially about its connection with sin. Is 
it a necessary connection ? Would there 
have been sorrow had there been no sin? 
God knows. May the sinless suffer ? Yes, 
verily; for Immanuel knew deeper depths 
than human thought can fathom. The in- 
nocent suffer with and for the guilty, both 
voluntarily and involuntarily. When such 
suffering is voluntary, it may perhaps be 
called sacrificial. 

The idea that sorrowful experience is dis- 
ciplinary is an old and familiar one. How 
far this is true we may not know. Great 
is the folly and presumption of those who 
weigh woes and disasters in balances, and 
announce just what and how much good 
they were intended to accomplish. 

Suffering may bring salutary results, but 
those go too far who say the same of sin. 
There is too much of this confusion of ideas, 
leading to shockingly immoral statements. 
The great poets, to whom we look for the 
clear vision of truth, have not always spoken 
the right word here. " Rephan " is ambig- 
uous. If it means that a world where there 
4 



26 Gbe %ove of tbe TKBorlo 



is nothing unpleasant, nothing imperfect in 
its natural qualities, no hardship, no endur- 
ance, no temptation, would not be the best 
place to form character, it may be true. But 
if it means that a world where there is no 
sin would not be the best place, then it is 
damnable falsehood. Evil is an ambiguous 
word. We hear men say that character is 
strengthened by experience of evil, and thus 
they account for the existence of such a 
world as this. If by evil they mean pain, 
toil, struggle, perhaps they are right. If 
they mean sin, they are wrong. Sin always 
weakens character, never strengthens it. 
Untried innocence is not character. Un- 
tried innocence is weak. But guilt is not 
the only alternative. There is such a thing 
as tried innocence. That is character, that 
is strong. Temptation and sin are not the 
same. We can imagine Adam and Eve 
mightily tempted, mightily resisting, and tri- 
umphant. Then we can imagine the whole 
human race descended from them inheriting 
their moral strength, instead of our present 
inheritance of moral weakness, ever tempted 
through all the ages, and ever stronger to 



B Sballow ©ptimism 27 



resist. This is not only a possible concep- 
tion, but was possible as a fact. We may 
have a good word for sorrow, but never one 
for sin. Sin is ever and only a hateful, hid- 
eous, and abominable thing. It has no good 
side, no compensations. Is it not sin that 
has defiled God's pure image in us ? Is it 
not sin that separates us from God? Is it 
not sin that ever lays that cruel burden on 
our Saviour's heart ? Our Saviour ! Then 
sin itself, though wholly and forever without 
compensation, is not without hope. 

Two sorrie Thynges there be — 

Ay, three : 
A Neste from which ye Fledglings have been taken, 

A Lamb forsaken, 
A Petal from ye Wilde Rose rudely shaken. 

Of gladde Thynges there be more — 

Ay, four : 
A Larke above ye olde Neste blithely singing, 

A Wilde Rose clinging 
In safety to ye Rock, a Shepherde bringing 
A Lamb, found, in his arms — and 

Chrystmesse Bells a-ringing. 



28 Gbe Xove of tbe "Caorlo 



Chapter V. — Gain and Loss 

There is a broad and far-reaching con- 
clusion for which evidence seems to be ac- 
cumulating, that in the general course of 
things the gains are greater than the losses. 
This seems to be true in the evolution of 
worlds; is it also true in the life of nations 
and of individuals ? We are not at present 
in a position to prove it. Those of us 
who permit ourselves to believe some things 
which are not proved may believe it. At 
least the opposite is unproved. 

Historians have been wont to say much 
about the decay and death of nations, attrib- 
uting their fall to internal corruption. Are 
not these statements due to a false analogy, 
and a partial view of facts ? Perhaps he 
sees more clearly who says, " The great em- 
pires of the Old World perished, not through 
internal moral-intellectual decay, but by 
outward pressure. They fell apart through 
insufficient political organization, and suc- 
cumbed to the violence of stronger powers." 

Rome, since the days of her own histo- 



<3ain and %oee 29 



rians, has been a favorite instance of na- 
tional degeneracy. If we compare the time 
of the second Punic war with the time of 
Nero, there are conspicuous losses indeed. 
A rude vigor, a simplicity of living, a single- 
ness of mental vision and of moral purpose, 
a fervor of patriotism, a personal military 
daring, an earnest religious faith, marked the 
early Romans. Their descendants lost in 
vigor, and gained in gentleness ; they lost in 
simplicity, and gained in refinement; they 
lost in singleness of view, and gained in 
breadth. If they were less zealous for Rome, 
they could be more just to men of other na- 
tions. If Roman citizens no longer fought, 
they did other things perhaps equally worthy 
of a man. And who would say that the loss 
of faith in the ancestral gods was not a step 
to nobler faith? The standard of morals 
was higher in the time of Seneca than in 
the time oT Plautus. A Horace is a hundred 
times more a man than a Cato. Better an 
age that could produce a Tacitus than one 
which produced an Ennius. No, the Roman 
race did not degenerate ; it rose from a lower 
to a higher plane of life. 



3° Gbe %ove of tbe TIKlorlo 



And what of the individual ? In the 
sweep of those forces which effect the de- 
velopment of nations many a soul is ruined. 
" So careless of the single life " is this " stream 
of tendency." As Rome rose from rude bar- 
barism to refinement and culture, the virtues 
of a civilized man might replace the virtues 
of an ignorant barbarian. This is great gain. 
On the contrary, vice might replace virtue. 
This is utter loss. The same man who was 
vile in the Rome of Nero might have been 
upright in the Rome of the first consul. 
Wider opportunities do not come without 
greater temptation. Not to every one of 
us does the devil offer the kingdoms of the 
world and the glory of them. A higher 
standard of morals in the nation does not 
mean a higher moral character in every in- 
dividual. In truth, we here come upon an- 
other element, the free choice. There is no 
fixed law of progress for the personal soul. 
All that can be said is. that he may make his 
gains greater than his losses, if he so choose. 
There is no loss destined for a man in the 
course of nature which does not bring with it 
a greater gain, if he does not sell his birthright. 



]L>outb anD %qc 



Chapter VI. — Youth and Age 

To be young is good, to be old is better. 
It is a perpetual astonishment to me to hear 
those who believe that God is good lament 
that they must pass from youth to age. 
If growing old is bad, then there is some- 
thing which is bad in the inevitable course 
of nature. This is to accuse the Maker. 
Surely it is good to grow. The saddest of 
all sights in nature is stunted growth. He 
has small conception of the meaning of life 
who looks upon youth as the brightest and 
best part of it. Life is an increasing, not a 
waning, good. 

There are in evi table losses in growing old. 
First, there is the fresh bloom of youthful 
beauty. Far be it from me to decry that as 
a thing of little worth. Nay ; it is a lovely 
thing, a good gift of God. Many another 
gift we could spare rather than this. But 
there is a beauty of the aged that is far 
better. The beauty of the young is a com- 
paratively empty thing. It is so plainly a 
gift and not an attainment. Ah, that face 



32 XLbc %ove of tbe TKflorlo 



in which we read of victories won, of sorrows 
well endured, joy unquenched by aught that 
life has brought, wisdom, and quietness, ten- 
der love, and hope that will not fail ! What 
round and rosy cheek, what flashing eye, has 
beauty to compare with that ? 

The old have lost physical strength and 
energy, the gladness of abounding physical 
life. This is a loss hard to bear. Bodily 
strength is a great good. Strength of soul 
is better. Who would go back from what 
he now thinks to what he used to think? 
Who would barter a chastened spirit for a 
strong arm and leaping blood ? 

The young are enthusiastic, hopeful, con- 
fident, courageous, believing. The old are 
not necessarily unenthusiastic, despairing 
diffident, cowardly, and skeptical. There is 
in the enthusiasm of the young an element 
of rashness and folly, in their hopefulness an 
element of ignorance, in their confidence an 
element of conceit, in their courage an ele- 
ment of recklessness, in their belief an ele- 
ment of credulity. It is quite possible in 
growing old to keep all these good qualities, 
purging out all these bad elements. 



tyoutb anD Bge 33 



I love the young, but the old are better. 
It is good to talk with a boy or girl of 
twenty; it is better to talk with a man or 
woman of forty; better still with a man or 
woman of eighty. It doth not yet appear 
what we shall be, but we shall be something 
more and better than we are. 

Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

I know what thou didst fret to know — 
Knowledge thou couldst not lure to thee, 

Whatever bribe thou wouldst bestow. 
That knowledge but a way-mark plants 
Along the road of ignorance. 

Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

I am enlarged where thou wert bound, 
Though vaunting still that thou wast free, 

And lord of thine own pleasure crowned. 
True freedom heeds a hidden stress 
Whereby desire to range grows less. 

Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

I am what thy dream-wandering sense 
Did shape, and thy fresh will decree — 

Yet all with subtle difference. 
Where heaven's arc did seem to end 
Still on and on fair fields extend. 

Yet listen, child I used to be ! 

Nothing of thine I dare despise, 
Nor passion, deed, nor fantasy ; 

For, lo ! the soul's far years shall rise 
And with unripeness charge this hour 
Would boast o'er thine its riper power. 



34 Gbe Xovc of tbe *uaorlo 



Chapter VII. — In the Orchard 

There is an old apple-orchard on the 
shore of the lake. Last Sunday it was at its 
moment of perfect beauty. As I reclined 
upon my favorite bough of the largest 
spreading tree, my book in my hand, closed 
as usual (for there are better things in an 
orchard than reading), while the breeze 
wafted the faint sweetness of the clustering 
blossoms, the birds sang, and my eyes rested 
on the deep green grass and the blue water, 
I was thinking of none of these things. I 
was thinking of the worms' nests. How 
happy the living creatures seemed as they 
wriggled in the sun. Like the Ancient Mar- 
iner, " I blessed them unawares." And to- 
morrow a man would come and burn them. 
I must be glad of that, for they would spoil 
the trees, my dear old trees. Oh, yes; let 
the worms be burned. Yet I was sorry too, 
for joy is joy, albeit the meager joy of a 
worm, . and fire must hurt even a worm. 
Said a merry, three-years child, my heart's 
joy and in truth my valued friend, who gives 



ITn tbe ©rebate 35 



me more good counsel than I can give to 
him — said he to me one day : " Did God 
make the little worms ? Does he love them 
too ? Then grandpa is a naughty man to 
burn them." Who will answer the child? 
Here we stumble upon a far deeper and 
darker problem than that of human suffer- 
ing, for there may be to man the result- 
ing good of moral discipline. But what 
compensation to the worm ? I exonerated 
grandpa, saying that he must burn the 
worms because they spoiled the trees. " Oh, 
then they are naughty worms to spoil the 
trees," was the child's reply. I said no more. 
Why tell him that the worms too are guilt- 
less? Uncompensated suffering inflicted 
upon the innocent — alas ! my child, it does 
look very like naughtiness somewhere. If 
not in grandpa, and not in the worms, then 
— pause, my soul. Utter no blasphemy. 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 

" Faintly trust ? " Nay; I will trust not 
faintly, I will trust fully, freely, strongly. It 



36 Cbe %ove oi tbe MorlD 

must be all trust here, no sight, not even the 
smallest ray of light. To trust is hard. But 
if one can trust at all, why is it not as easy 
to trust perfectly as to trust faintly ? If I 
cannot think that God is perfect in justice, 
love, and power, in spite of all appearances 
to the contrary, then I will not trust him at 
all ; no, not one inch. But if I do think he 
is thus perfect, then I will trust him forever 
and for all. 



Chapter VIII. — By the Waterfall 

There is a lonely spot shut in by cliffs 
of stone veiled in delicate green, and in 
the midst a little waterfall, spray and mist 
gleaming white in the sunshine against the 
dark rock. The place is so beautiful and 
so little frequented that one must think of 
it as beauty which God makes for himself. 
Yet I think he is always glad when one of 
us will come out to look at it with him. To 
me, standing in this spot and gazing down 
upon the cascade and up upon the cliffs, it 
seems that God is both in his works — that 



JBy tbe XUaterfaU 37 



the power which carries the water down and 
the tree-trunk up is God — and that he looks 
upon his works and takes joy in beauty. 
This is a sad combination of pantheism and 
anthropomorphism. At this moment I will 
not think of any of those terrible Greek 
words. God takes gladness or sorrow from 
all, gladness from all but sin, sorrow from 
us when we sin, and joy over one sinner 
that repenteth. In the parables of the prod- 
igal son and the lost sheep it may be that 
the lost are sought for their own good ; but 
in the parable of the swept-for shilling, for 
whose ? Surely not the shilling's. He who 
looks at natural beauty as looking at it with 
God has a noble fellowship. He need never 
fear loving it too much. Perhaps we dis- 
honor the Maker by loving it too little. 
We walk too carelessly in his sanctuary, 
though all his messengers, the poets and 
prophets, from the beginning have warned 
us to beware. 

And every common bush afire with God ; 
But onlv he who sees takes off his shoes. 



38 cbe %ove of tbe TldorlD 



Chapter IX. — Joy 

My grandfather, a devout and upright 
man, was greatly desirous of my growth in 
piety. He conceived joy as of two kinds — re- 
ligious joy, found in prayer, reading religious 
books, and the services of the church, and 
worldly joy. While knowing that it was but 
natural that certain childish sports should 
then attract me, he hoped they would soon 
be quite banished from my heart. I can 
but think that he conceived the human 
heart as an inclosed space, and that when 
religious joy grew, as every true believer 
must long to have it grow, it drove out, in 
the very nature of things, all other joys, and 
filled the heart. 

Such a division of joy is quite impossible 
to me. All joy, save that which is found in 
sinning, is to my thought religious joy. Body 
and soul reach out, so God has willed it, for 
that which fills their need. "God giveth 
them their meat in due season," and with it 
giveth joy, full, many-sided, deep, and rich. 
Is it not all his joy ? Why then call it less 



30£ 39 

than religious, as if it were outside of him? 
Why wish to lessen it ? There is no need to 
lessen any joy to make room for any other. 
The human heart is not an inclosed space. 
It grows with that which fills it. Shall Ave 
make ourselves less than God has made us ? 
And shall we think to imprison the Deity 
within bounds ? We say that when we are 
uttering words of prayer we are in com- 
munion with him. But when and where 
are we out of communion with him ? When 
we are speaking words to him, is that joy 
more in him than other joys? O our 
Father, we are with thee when we know it 
not! All our springs are in thee. Make 
us clean, make us strong, that all our life 
may speak to thee and answer back thy 
love. 



Chapter X. — Society 

There was a time in youth when the 
trifling and short-lived vanities of the social 
world had little charm for me. Such things 
were far beneath the level of my thoughts. 



Cbe Xove of tbe TlClorlo 



It seemed much grander to stay at home 
and read Plato. So intellectual and serious 
a young person could not enjoy the conver- 
sation of ordinary folk, nor the gaieties which 
please the throng. 

O that lofty, vanished youth, which had 
not learned the folly of despising! O ig- 
norant and superficial judgment, which 
counts my neighbor more frivolous than I 
because he wears a better garment, dines 
out oftener, and talks about the last new 
novel or the comic stage. O vain conceit, 
which stands aloof from converse with the 
poor, the ignorant, and unlettered, as of 
another world than they. Who is there 
that cannot give me something better than 
what I find in myself? No longer do peo- 
ple weary me. I find social visits and the 
talk of all kinds of men, women, and chil- 
dren both pleasant and profitable. Verily, 
my pedestal is shattered. A pillar sixty feet 
high does not now lift me above those com- 
mon things in which the vulgar are inter- 
ested. It does not seem a waste of time 
to hear Mr. A's opinion of the state of the 
market, Mrs, B's anxieties about Bobbie's 



Society 41 

cough, young C's experience in foot-ball, 
and pretty Miss D's view of the comparative 
merits of Tennyson and Browning, while I 
might be reading metaphysics, or thinking 
on the things of the Spirit. 

Here is certainly a great change which 
the years have brought. Is it a change for 
the better or for the worse ? For the bet- 
ter, Seneca and Epictetus, St. Simeon and 
Thomas a Kempis, John Knox and Richard 
Baxter, to the contrary notwithstanding. I 
will not say that the world and its lying 
vanities have been making ever-deeper in- 
roads upon my religious life, and more and 
more enslaving my affections, dragging me 
down to a lower level of thought and de- 
sire. Not so; but rather, as religion has 
deepened its hold and broadened its sway, 
every part of life quickened by its touch has 
become more real, more sacred, more joy- 
ful, more satisfying. Religion is not a de- 
partment of human life. Religion is a spirit 
pervading all departments of human life. 
The religious nature is to be cultivated and 
the soul prepared for heaven, not by with- 
drawing the affections and interest from "the 
6 



42 Gbe %ove of tbe Morlo 



things of time and sense," taking ever less 
and less joy in them, and fixing the thoughts 
exclusively upon subjects called religious. 
No, no; not so are saints made. There must 
be an ever-deepening, ever-broadening love 
of God and man in the soul, and then will 
nothing which God made, nothing which 
ministers to man, seem trivial to us. 

Wouldst thou be daily more religious, O 
my soul ? Draw nearer to the Father, and 
that will surely not draw thee farther away 
from the human things, even the simple, 
lowly things that please the sense. The 
taste of that which pleases the palate, the 
bright adornments which attract the eye, the 
harmless gaieties of social life — do not call 
them irreligious things, foes to thy religious 
life, or, alas ! to thee they may become so. 
Carry them in thy heart so very near to thy 
religion that they shall ever feel its purify- 
ing touch. Wear the ball-dress, eat of the 
dainties, and beware lest thou think one un- 
worthy thought, say one unkind word, do 
one cowardly or ungenerous deed, or ever 
forget, in selfish pleasure-seeking, the world's 
need of thy love and help. 



JBOOfcS 43 

Chapter XI. — Books 

The world of books is still the world 

True, O poet, and that fact adds another 
to the things to be abjured, if indeed to ab- 
jure the world is the thing that becometh 
saints. The pillar on which I stood w T hen 
Plato seemed more attractive than society 
must be made higher and placed on a still 
narrower base. For Plato is only more in- 
tellectual than dancing, not more unworldly. 
Intellectual pride is a part, and no small 
part, of the pride of life. Nay, there is even 
said to be a kind of pride called spiritual 
pride, to which those are tempted who have 
quite abjured the things of the body and 
the things of the intellect. It would seem 
that to withdraw from the w r orld and to shut 
the soul up to itself does not deliver from 
temptation. 

If renunciation be a test of saintliness, how 
far have I renounced the world of books ? 
Make the test severe. Would I be willing 
to take some religious book, say Thomas 
a Kempis's " Imitation of Christ," for my 



Cbe %ox>e of tbe morlo 



sole reading, giving up all worldly books 
whatsoever ? No, never. To be honest, I 
do not like Thomas a Kempis. Change the 
test, then. Say the Bible. Would I be will- 
ing to limit my reading to the Bible only ? 
Ah, that is different, very different. I could 
do very well with the Bible only. The 
Bible is a body of literature. It cannot be 
called a religious book at all, in the sense in 
which the " Imitation of Christ " is so called. 
There is a great deal of the world in the 
Bible, and even something of the flesh and 
the devil too. Certainly if the choice lay 
between the Bible alone without any other 
book, and all other books without the Bi- 
ble, I would eagerly and gladly choose the 
Bible. But who dare bid read Genesis and 
no other history, Isaiah and no other poetry, 
Paul and no other philosophy? He will 
not find his warrant in the Bible itself. The 
stoic may despise books and the learning of 
the schools ; the Christian, never. The Bible 
is divine and human. So is all life upon 
the earth, and all the record of man's life 
and thought. The world of books is still 
the world, a wide, rich world. In it are 



HMgb anD %o\v 45 



beauty and power and light, and in it, too, 
are snares and pitfalls. He only walks in 
any world with safety who takes firm hold 
of truth and walks with God. 

A book is a spiritual presence. Its spirit is 
noble or base, loving or hating, sincere or 
mocking, clean or unclean. Shun the evil, 
O my soul; touch not the unclean thing. 
"I pray not that thou shouldst take them 
out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep 
them from the evil." 



Chapter XII. — High and Low 

We have little to do with the absolute. 
One is tempted to think at times that it might 
prove a simpler subject to deal with than the 
relative. What is high and what is low? 
Are spiritual things high and material things 
low ? The ascetics have always thought so. 

From the low train of mortal toys 
I soar to reach immortal joys. 

I doubt whether they are to be reached by 
soaring. 



46 cbe Xove of tbe Taaorlo 



Matter existing alone, apart from any liv- 
ing soul, if such a thing is or could be, is 
low and even worthless. But matter as we 
know it, in its relations and adaptations, is 
too closely united with the highest to be 
called low. We do not and we cannot rise 
above it. Perhaps the path to our highest 
spiritual development lies right here where 
we are, in dealing with material things justly 
and faithfully. The apostle bids us mind 
not high things. A man of the greatest in- 
tellectual gifts and attainments may be doing 
his duty in scrubbing a floor. If he is doing 
his duty, he is doing the highest thing in all 
the universe. Let no one mourn as over 
wasted powers, or say that high gifts are 
brought down to low uses. Let no one say 
he stoops to such toil. If he himself feels 
that he stoops to do it, he is not a man of 
high character. It is an exalted privilege 
that we are permitted to do anything that 
is of use. All work stands above us and 
beckons us up. Happy is he who sees every 
duty as above him and worthy of his best. 

A false estimate of what is high and what 
is low is a common source of bad manners 



Dtgb anD Xow 47 



as well as of bad morals. There are some per- 
sons of culture and social standing who treat 
their equals with graceful ease and courtesy; 
the few whom they regard as their superiors, 
with exaggerated deference; the many whom 
they count beneath them, with calm inso- 
lence and utter disregard. This behavior 
they count proper from the higher to the 
lower, forgetting that insolence is always 
low. Learning is better than ignorance, but 
the learned are not always higher than the 
ignorant. Since there is something in us 
above the intellect, the very learned may be 
very despicable. A refinement of taste which 
looks with scorn or indifference upon the vul- 
gar is itself the essence of vulgarity. An 
evident sense of superiority is not a token 
of superiority. A quiet assumption is more 
offensive than an obtrusive claim. Respect 
is due from every man to every other man. 
Since elevation is in the action itself, — that 
is, in the attitude of soul, not in that with 
which the action deals, — to live on a high 
level is open to every man. The honest, 
the humble, the reverent, the useful are high, 
and their work is high, be it with matter, 



48 Gbe TLove of tbe TiClorlo 



with mind, with spirit. The careless, the 
proud, the scornful, the useless are low. 

An action may be high without being 
great. Greatness is not open to all; it im- 
plies something more than noble motive. 
Greatness is power guided by love. The 
love without the power is noble, but not 
great. The power without the love is mon- 
strous, but not great. 

There is a higher and a lower. That which 
is high is within the reach of us all. It is 
within our reach now and here, upon this 
very earth which Jesus trod. He was not 
higher when he spoke eternal mysteries than 
when he used the plane and saw. He is not 
higher on his throne than when on his cross. 



Chapter XIII. — The World without 
God 

How deep is the gloom which weighs 
upon the spirit in reading the words of those 
who find no God in the world, nothing but 
man and a something which they call na- 



Cbe IdorlD witbout <5oD 



ture! These prophets of no-god would 
seem, like the prophets of God, to have 
been since the world began. It seems but 
a step from that Roman poet who 

Dropped his plummet down the broad, 
Deep universe, and said, " No God," 
Finding no bottom, 

to this Mr. Richard Jefferies whose books 
I have been reading to-day. One can 
scarcely believe them two thousand years 
apart. There are the same close observation 
of nature, the same yearning for some kind 
of heart-union with nature, the same long- 
ing to save men from all their sorrows and 
mistakes by bringing the race into harmony 
with nature, the same gloomy intensity and 
brooding sadness. Well may they be sad. 
Neither will they win thus peace for their 
own souls nor redemption for men. Man is 
not a child of nature; he is a child of God. 
What is nature ? The all-mother ? Strange 
mother ! Blind and deaf; pitiless, or power- 
less to aid; who torments her children for a 
few brief years with meaningless and useless 
sufferings, then blots them out as they had 
never been. What is nature ? Matter, force, 
7 



50 Cbe %ox>e of tbe TKflorlo 



and law. Which of these shall be just? 
Which of them shall show mercy ? Which 
shall help or save ? Nature is not our 
parent. She cannot even reveal to us a 
parent. Nature reveals power, and not with 
certainty anything else. Is it an intelligent 
power? Is it a beneficent power? We 
know not. Call it, then, the unknowable, 
and escape despair if you can. Our case is 
worse than that of the ancient pagan world, 
inasmuch as an unknowable is infinitely 
farther off than an unknown. Worse than 
the pagan world, unless, indeed, we be a 
Christian world. Knowing Christ, we know 
God, a father, a redeemer, a sufferer. No 
other but a suffering God for such a world 
as this. Nature and man, suffering and sin, 
a black, black world. But into that world 
light is come. 

The awful unknown power that in the darkness 

lies 
Thou saidst could be revealed, through thee, to 

mortal eyes : 

And what though earth and sea his glory do pro- 
claim, 

Tho' on the stars is writ that great and dreadful 
name — 



Bntbropomorpbism 5 1 



Yea — hear me, Son of Man — with tears my eyes 

are dim, 
I cannot read the word which draws me close to 

him. 

I say it after thee, with faltering voice and weak, 
"Father of Jesus Christ " — this is the God I seek. 

On thee I lean my soul, bewildered, tempest-tost, 
If thou canst fail, for me then everything is lost. 

For triumph, for defeat, I lean my soul on thee ; 
Yes, where thou art, O Lord, there let thy ser- 
vant be. 



Chapter XI V. — Anthropomorphism 

As the eye and ear become accustomed 
to these big Greek words, they do not strike 
so much terror to the soul as they formerly 
did. My idea of God is anthropomorphic, 
it is true. The choice lies between anthro- 
pomorphism and agnosticism. If we may 
conceive that there is anything in God 
which is like to anything in us, if man is in 
any sense created in God's image, then we 
may know something of God. Otherwise, 
we can never know anything about him. 
We may postulate the existence of some- 



52 Gbe %ox>e of tbe TXHorlo 



thing back of matter, force, and law, as a 
philosophic necessity, or we may refuse to 
philosophize at all, and stop short with mat- 
ter, force, and law as observed realities. 
In either case we do not know God. The 
only God who can be known by man is, to 
just that extent to which he may be known, 
an anthropomorphic God. My God is a 
being who knows, feels, wills. He is right- 
eous, as any moral being is righteous, not by 
necessity of nature, but by voluntary con- 
formity to that law of love which is the 
eternal law of moral obligation. Necessity 
of nature is not righteousness. 

" My God?" Not mine because I have 
discovered or imagined such a being. The 
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom 
the prophets and kings of Israel dimly saw, 
whom the Messiah of Israel and Redeemer 
of the world makes manifest, the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ. " Canst thou by searching 
find out God ? " No ; but he can find out 
me. There stands the record written. He 
has come to search for men. Our Father can 
and does make himself known to his children. 



lpantbeism 53 



Chapter XV. — Pantheism 

Anthropomorphism might find pardon 
in some quarters, pantheism in others, but 
a combination of the two — monstrous ! 
Guilty of that, how shall I save my philo- 
sophic soul ? Yet let me have my thoughts, 
though they are fragments, and not fitted 
together in one perfect whole. Though in- 
complete, they may not be untrue. Who 
can find out the Almighty to perfection ? 

Pantheism is an indefinite term. If it be 
pantheism to believe that force is not an 
attribute of matter; that all force is spiritual 
in its origin; that God is directly acting 
upon matter everywhere, producing all those 
motions which we call heat, and light, and 
electricity, and life, and the rest, then I am a 
pantheist. Questions crowd upon the mind. 
What is matter shorn of its attributes? Is 
it anything? Was it created? Is it eternal 
and inseparable from the Divine Spirit which 
pervades it? Unanswerable questions. Yet 
am I sure that it is God who is pushing up- 
ward this little blade of grass, opening the 



54 Gbe %ove of tbe "GClorlo 



petals of this blue violet, waving the branches 
of the trees, and guiding through the air that 
bird which wings its way across the blue. 
How awful is his presence in the solemn 
stillness of the woods ! How awful, yet how 
glad! "Thou hast beset me behind and 
before, and laid thine hand upon me." 

Oh, how I fear thee, living God, 
With deepest, tenderest fears ! 

The fixity of nature's laws, as we call them, 
is but his wise and loving way of working. 
" The Deity lacks not ministers ; he him- 
self ministers." We are not separated from 
him by a long train of second causes. We 
are not in the iron clutches of a merciless 
mechanism. O thou Almighty and All- 
merciful, how shall I walk before thee ? 
"He knoweth our frame; he remembereth 
that we are dust." 



Chapter XVI. — The Relation of 
Religion to Facts 

Emotions arise in view of facts or of sup- 
posed facts. It may not be necessary to es- 



Zbc delation of IReligion to afacts 55 



tablish facts by evidence in order that they 
may arouse emotion, but it is necessary that 
they be believed to exist. If, then, the world 
ceases to believe in the facts which have 
hitherto lain at the basis of the religious 
feeling, the feeling will disappear. There 
are those who, while they expect to see men 
abandon all belief in God and a future life 
as insufficiently proved, expect at the same 
time to see a beautiful development of re- 
ligious emotion leading to noble moral ac- 
tion. Such a condition is simply impossible. 
Religion is not an aroused state of emotion 
with reference to nothing in particular. Re- 
ligion is an attitude toward the Deity. If 
no Deity exists, there can be no attitude 
toward him. 

There is a God, or there is not. A man 
who does not believe that there is a God, 
and a knowable God, cannot be religious. 
His soul may swell with cosmic emotion, 
but cosmic emotion is not religion. It lacks 
the elements of reverence, love, and obedi- 
ence. 

This is no time for sentimental folly. Let 
us call things by their right names. If we 



56 Gbe %ox>e of tbe iMorlD 



can reasonably continue to believe in the 
facts of religion, by all means let us do so. 
It is not necessarily unreasonable to believe 
them because they are not proved. Certainly 
they can not be disproved. If, however, 
we must give them up, let us look the matter 
squarely in the face ; let us give up religion 
altogether, and make the best of it, if there 
be a best. 



Chapter XVII. — The Breadth of the 

Commandment 

" Thy commandment is exceeding broad." 
" For I say unto you, that except your right- 
eousness shall exceed the righteousness of 
the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Be 
ye therefore perfect, even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect." There are 
no works of supererogation. There is no 
double standard. There is nowhere and at 
no time any easing of the requirement. There 
is no half allegiance. There is no partial 
obedience. 



Gbe JBreaotb of tbe Commandment 57 



We are all prone, after the fashion of the 
Romish Church, to make a double standard, 
and to think that in so doing we are raising 
the standard, while in fact we are debasing 
it. We are prone to imagine that there is a 
worldly life, a life upon a low plane, per- 
missible to us, while there is a higher, purer 
life within our reach ; that it is nobler not to 
love the pleasant things of earth, while yet 
to love them is not sinful. This is utter con- 
fusion of moral ideas. Nothing less than 
the best that we see and know is required of 
any one of us. Nothing more than the best 
that we see and know is possible to any one 
of us. There is no second best in morals. 
There is only a right and a wrong. He who 
is doing right is on the highest moral and 
spiritual level. He who sees a better within 
his reach, and deliberately refuses it, is not 
doing right at all. He is simply immoral 
and irreligious. I have spent an hour in 
amusing myself. Did I do wrong ? Could 
I have done better? For me to say that 
the amusement was not wrong, and yet that 
I might have done better, is absurd. We 
imagine that in so saying we are setting a 



58 Gbe Xove of tbc Tl&orlo 



high and unworldly standard of Christian 
attainment. On the contrary, we are ad- 
mitting the fatal idea of a well-enough in 
the face of a possible better, an idea which 
is capable of sinking a man in the very 
bottomless pit of moral degradation. 

This is not to say that we may not one 
day see more clearly what is best than we 
see it now. The law, stated more distinctly 
and more sternly by Jesus than by any 
other, is perfect and unchanging. Its ap- 
plications are according to our seeing, and 
must vary. Two persons may be doing ex- 
actly opposite things, and each be doing 
right. But there are not two courses, a 
lower and a higher, set before the same per- 
son, between which he is at liberty to choose. 
When I see that a certain course of action 
is not the very best and highest I can pur- 
sue, that instant such a course becomes ut- 
terly wrong and sinful for me. 

As there is no less-than-right which is yet 
sufficient, so there is no more-than-right 
which is over and above the requirement. 
The idea is not uncommon that justice is 
what we ought to do, and mercy something 



•Redemption 59 



which we may give or withhold. This might 
be true if the law were what the Pharisees 
conceived it to be, an external rule. Jesus 
demands a righteousness which shall exceed 
the righteousness of the scribes and Phari- 
sees. The limit, and the only limit, of our 
duty is our ability. He who gives alms to 
the needy is not bestowing of grace that 
which he is free to withhold did he so pre- 
fer. The law of love knows no withholding. 
Mercy is not the abrogation of law or the 
lessening of requirement. Forgiveness is not 
the condoning of offenses. Jesus did not 
come to tell us that we might have our bad- 
ness overlooked, but that we might become 
good. " Blessed are they which do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall 
be filled." 



Chapter XVIII. — Redemption 

" Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or 
the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do 
good, that are accustomed to do evil." Is 
the law so stern ? Is there no recovery of 



6o XLbc %ove of tbe TKIlorlo 



lost uprightness ? When our evil choices 
have long conspired with our inherited ten- 
dencies, frightful is the malady of the soul. 
Nature is not without healing for the body. 
Is there any help for the soul ? Yes ; in 
God there is help, for he is a redeeming 
God. " There is forgiveness with thee, that 
thou mayest be feared." The knowledge of 
an all-wise, beneficent Creator, awful in his 
goodness and purity, were but bitterness to 
us without the knowledge of his willingness 
and power to redeem sinners. What have we 
to do with the good and the pure ? Only to 
abhor the more the abject meanness of our 
guilt. But he can save. We may become 
fit to be called his children. He is a God 
who goes forth to seek the lost. This is no 
cheap and easy redemption. Think of that 
Christ-life, the patience, the humiliation, the 
suffering, the temptation, the agony, the 
cross. And when by infinite love and in- 
finite patience we are won to repentance, 
then what struggle with old habits, what 
slow stumbling in the path of virtue ! What 
a maimed and crippled soul it is, after all, 
the soul that has sinned! Full and free is 



ffreeDom 



the redeeming grace, yet not easily may the 
leopard change his spots. But there is all 
eternity before us. Trust, O my soul, and 
look up ! 

My sins, my sins, my Saviour ! 

They take such hold on me, 
I am not able to look up, 

Save only, Christ, to thee; 
In thee is all forgiveness, 

In thee abundant grace, 
My shadow and my sunshine 

The brightness of thy face. 

My sins, my sins, my Saviour ! 

How sad on thee they fall ! 
Seen through thy gentle patience, 

I tenfold feel them all ; 
I know they are forgiven, 

But still their pain to me 
Is all the grief and anguish 

They laid, my Lord, on thee. 



Chapter XIX. — Freedom 

The brute is free from the binding force 
of moral law; the more slave he. The man 
is free because he is bound. He is free to 
control his appetites by bringing them un- 
der obedience to the law. This is the only 
freedom worthy of the name. Nobody does 



62 XLbc Xov>e of tbe IKflorlo 



as he pleases but he who pleases to do 
right. He who like the animals follows 
impulse does a thousand things which by- 
no means please him after they are done. 
He is in leading-strings. 

Jesus has given a perfect statement of the 
law in his two commandments. Every man 
who perfectly obeys this law is free from all 
other laws, rules, and regulations whatso- 
ever; not free to set them aside recklessly 
at the bidding of impulse, but free to keep 
them of choice and not of compulsion. The 
young and the superficial think that to be 
free from rules means to do the things 
which the rules forbid. On the contrary, 
a man may be quite as free in obeying laws 
as in disregarding them. 

God made us to be free. How is it that, 
free-born sons of God, we are ready to sell 
ourselves daily for so small a price? We 
have been Satan's bond-servants, and the 
habits of our servitude are strong upon us. 
When shall we stand fast in the liberty with 
which Christ has made us free ? 



Zbis present Evil "C&orlD 63 



Chapter XX. — This Present Evil 
World 

The world may be contemplated under 
many aspects. At times the thought of the 
awful wickedness that is and has been upon 
this earth falls upon the soul with a crush- 
ing weight, and rests there, and will not be 
put away. The mind travels through the 
ages, and dwells upon the blackest pages of 
human history, those records of cruelty and 
treachery, and selfish greed and untamed 
passion, working woe unutterable. Then the 
thoughts run round and round the globe, 
and the heart sinks in beholding the sins 
now crying to heaven from every corner of 
every land. Then, when we see the little 
children, how the awful peril of temptation 
seems inwrought in their very life, in body 
and in mind, and how the conditions out- 
side them work together with their very 
nature, till it seems a miracle if any escape 
ruin; then our soul writhes in agony and 
doubt, and nothing can fit our mood but 
those blasphemous words of Omar : 



64 Cbe %ove of tbe IWorlo 



O thou who man of baser earth didst make, 
And e'en with Paradise devise the snake, 
For all the sin wherewith the face of man 
Is blackened, man's forgiveness give — and take. 

We feel our own guilt for the sins we have 
committed, but we feel something besides — 
the sense of an awful power, a downward 
current, against which men and women, and 
most of all the tender infants, have scarce 
strength to fight. One is tempted for a 
moment to believe that the race is, as some 
theologians have taught, accursed, or to 
conceive a malignant demon who has us in 
his grasp. The heart rebels, the spirit fails. 
We are all but ready to curse God and die. 

Gethsemane and Calvary rise up before 
me. Ah, God, the guilt is ours ! The agony 
thou sharest with us. The heart that hard- 
ened itself before thy creative power and 
sovereign will is humbled in the dust be- 
fore thy suffering love. Thou hast done all 
things well. We see it not, but trust. For- 
give that profane daring that thought to ac- 
cuse thee. Thou hast not made us to give 
us over to destruction. The power of evil 
shall be broken. There is no fear, there is 
no doubt. 



justice anfc d&ercg 65 



Chapter XXI. — Justice and Mercy 

There is a technical or legal justice, and 
there is a moral justice. They are some- 
times the same and sometimes not. When I 
say that my neighbor ought, in strict justice, 
to pay me what he owes, but that I may 
in mercy remit part of the debt, I speak of 
legal justice. Morally, I ought or I ought 
not, according to circumstances, to remit a 
part or the whole of the debt. If I ought 
to remit it, it is morally unjust, though 
legally just, to require payment. If I ought 
not to remit payment, it is not a merciful 
thing to remit it. That is to say, in the 
moral realm justice and mercy are one and 
inseparable. 

Neither legally nor morally is there any 
such thing as retributive justice. The very 
idea of such a thing implies that offenses 
and sufferings can be weighed in balances, 
so much pain for so much wrong-doing. 
The notion is absurd. The only standard 
of rewards and penalties is the highest good 
of all concerned. 
9 



Cbe %ox>c of tbe tlfilorld 



Legally, a man who has broken a law 
may be said to deserve the penalty. Mor- 
ally, there is no such thing as deserving 
punishment or reward. The good deserve 
to be approved, not to be rewarded; the 
bad deserve to be condemned, not to be 
punished. It is unjust to condemn the in- 
nocent, or to clear the guilty. It is not 
necessarily unjust to inflict suffering upon 
the innocent or to let the guilty go free. If 
it is for the highest good of all that either 
the innocent or the guilty should be made 
to surfer, it is both just and merciful to make 
them surfer to whatever extent is necessary. 
If it is consistent with the highest good of 
all to remit penalty, it is just and merciful 
to remit it. 

God's justice is moral justice, since his 
law is moral law. Therefore we see great 
inequalities in his dealings. Legal justice 
strives after equality of dealing. Moral jus- 
tice ignores it. Nothing in the parables of 
Jesus is plainer than this. Those who la- 
bored all day in the vineyard, and those who 
worked but one hour, received every man a 
penny. God condemns the sinner; he pro- 



justice anD ZlBercs 6 7 



nounces him guilty. That is just. He may 
or may not punish the sinner. If it will be 
good for the sinner to be punished, it is 
both merciful and just to punish him. If it 
will be good for the sinner to go unpun- 
ished, it is both just and merciful to leave 
him unpunished. God forgives the repen- 
tant sinner. What does that mean ? It 
means that he removes the sentence of 
moral condemnation. That is just, for the 
sinner, led to repentance by the sacrifice of 
Christ and the ministration of the Spirit, is 
now righteous. But, though now no longer 
under condemnation, he may need to suffer 
the penalty of his past sins. Forgiveness 
does not imply remission of penalty. God 
will mercifully punish all those who can be 
benefited by punishment, repentant or un- 
repentant. 

Through the sacrifice of Christ and the 
ministration of the Spirit the sinner is re- 
deemed from sin to uprightness. Is it in 
justice or in mercy that God, at this cost, 
goes to seek the lost ? In both, for they are 
inseparable still. In justice, not because 
the lost deserve forgiveness, for there is no 



68 Cbe %ox>e of tbe Morlo 



such thing as desert. In justice as well as in 
mercy, because if God could save, and did 
not save, he were unjust. 

Lord God, I fear thee; yet I fear thee 
not. I am unclean. Punish me, but not 
in thy displeasure. Now am I one with thee 
through thy redeeming grace, and my will is 
as thy will. I fear thy wrath, but I fear not 
thy rod. 



Chapter XXII. — Guidance 

We seem to be always choosing, daily, 
hourly, in things great and small. How 
much of this choice is only seeming, who 
shall say? Few go through life without 
reaching the conclusion that there is a power 
outside us which directs our path. Where, 
then, our boasted freedom? That a man 
goes here or there unconsciously guided by 
an external power, while seeming to himself 
to choose, is a mystery. That a man is 
saved or lost, good or bad, by decree of an 
external power is a contradiction. We may 
accept a mystery — a contradiction, never. 



<3utoance 69 



God's will, working in some mysterious way 
with man's will, directs the events of his life. 
In the supreme moral choice, the attitude of 
his will toward the moral law, that which 
determines man's character and destiny, 
man is absolutely free. 

For the rest, who of us could wish or dare 
to be left alone to his own choice where to 
go and what to do ? One alone in all the 
universe has power and wisdom, and that 
power and wisdom is ready for the service 
of the weakest and the lowest of us. Yet we 
rebel against control, so slow to learn the 
lesson that we are not fit to walk alone. One 
would think it the simplest and easiest of all 
lessons — yes, and the sweetest, too. Our 
greedy passions are stronger than our faith 
and love. 

It is life that makes faith hard. No; the 
lesson is not easy, after all. It is hard to see 
all things go wrong. It is hard to see the 
good cause fail. It is hard to see the wicked 
triumph. It is hard to be compelled by what 
we call the force of circumstances to do one 
thing while it seems so plain that we ought 
to be doing another. 



70 Gbe %ove of tbe IKflorlo 



Yet how foolish to fancy that we know 
how things ought to go ; know what is fail- 
ure or what is success, what is good for us 
to do. One knows. When we have learned 
to know him and to trust him, then life is 
sweet, then the yoke is easy and the burden 
light. We still long for many things, but we 
do not chafe or fret. 

Ask him not, then, when or how, 
Only bow. 



Chapter XXIII. — The Prayers of the 
Innocent 

" God be merciful to me a sinner" is the 
undertone of all our praying. Often it is the 
only form of words our lips can frame. So 
inwrought is this petition in our very thought 
of prayer, that we scarce conceive of any 
prayer without it, except as pharisaical. 
What warrant have we, because we are 
sinners, to narrow our conception of the 
communion of the created spirit with the 
uncreated to that which is appropriate to 
sinners ? 



Gbe praters of tbe Unnocent 71 



There are, perhaps, in the universe, multi- 
tudes of innocent children of the Father. 
How do they pray ? The thought fascinates. 
How awful, how forever unattainable to us, 
to adore the divine righteousness, themselves 
also from the beginning of their existence 
perfect in righteousness; to pray for the 
bringing into the kingdom of all who are 
outside, themselves never having been out- 
side ; to submit to the divine will, conscious 
that they never have rebelled; to ask for 
bread, without the thought that they have 
grieved the love that gives it ; to dread temp- 
tation, yet not to shudder as those who have 
been vanquished by it. Only one petition of 
the perfect prayer need they omit, yet for us 
the spirit of that one petition runs through all 
the rest. He that must once say, " Forgive," 
can never again say any words just as before. 

Ah, my soul, think not these thoughts too 
far. " Never again" is all too sad a word. 
The Father would not have thee over- 
shadow with the remembrance of infinite loss 
the infinite gain of thy redemption. If to 
have thee back again is enough for him, let 
it be enough for thee. 



72 XLbc Hove of tbe TiEiorlo 



Chapter XXIV.— One of Us 

" Did one of us," said my little friend 
— trying to make the evolution idea throw 
some light upon his deepest problem — " Did 
one of us get to be God ? " Not that, my 
child. We must be content if they will let 
us believe that we have gotten to be man. 
The child had evidently some dim idea that 
we are something else than a collection of 
individuals. And so, my little man, if we 
ever do rise to a higher plane of develop- 
ment, it will be the indissoluble body of 
us, and not any one alone. 

One of us ! Oh, to discern the relation 
between that one, absolutely separate and 
alone, which each knows himself to be, and 
that race-unit which we quite as surely are. 
How shall a man reach the highest which 
is possible to him ? A prophet of culture 
will bid him isolate himself, think his own 
thought, live his own life, " demand not that 
the things without him yield him love, 
amusement, sympathy." " Who finds him- 
self." says such a teacher. " loses his misery." 



©ne of XXs 73 



On the contrary, a prophet of humanity 
would have us seek a common, not a sepa- 
rate, good, 

And move together, gathering a new soul — 
The soul of multitudes. 

"Men live together; they think alone," 
says the philosopher, uttering a partial truth 
which does not solve the problem. It is 
only in our systems that the intellect is a 
separate department of man's nature. We 
live together, and by the same token we 
may not think alone. It is the race which 
thinks. It is the race which is attaining 
truth. The spirit of the age, the temper of 
its mind, appears in the bootblack as well 
as in the system-maker. There is no more 
pitiful thing upon this pitiful earth than pride 
of intellect. 

In a very limited sense can it be said that 
" man thinks alone." He grasps such ideas 
as are at hand, and handles them according 
to his power and the earnestness of his en- 
deavor. To think is a sacred duty, and 
every man is left alone to do that duty or 
to leave it undone, as in all other moral 
choices. No other can act for him, no other 



74 Gbe %ove of tbe 'OClorlD 



can reach conclusions for him. But let no 
man dare the attempt to isolate his thought. 
The result of that attempt is always some 
strange thing, a thing without life. Men 
wonder, and smile, and pass on. One man 
alone has scant material for thought. A 
widening experience is the mightiest over- 
thrower of conclusions. One day of deep 
emotional experience may scatter the results 
of many days of careful and consistent rea- 
soning. Thus it is that there are systems of 
doctrine mailed in invulnerable logic, where 
the intellect can find no flaw 7 , against w T hich, 
nevertheless, the soul of man has rebelled 
and will rebel. Some have said, therefore, 
that logic is misleading, and our reasoning 
powers are not to be trusted. Not so. The 
Maker has not given us a will-o'-the-wisp 
for our guidance. The syllogism is a perfect 
instrument, and like all instruments has a 
limited value. A perfect chisel cannot hew 
a marble statue out of a block of wood. 
Correct syllogisms do not insure infallible 
conclusions. What we want is more of that 
rich tide of sympathy, the common life-blood 
w T hich flows through the universe of being — 



QelW&bnegation 7S 



yes, the universe of being, for not even the 
race of man is a unity large enough. It is 
not enough for a man to find himself; or 
rather no man truly finds himself until he 
finds himself to be simply one of us. 



Chapter XXV. — Self-abnegation 

Jesus taught self-sacrifice; self-abnegation 
he did not teach. "Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." If, then, I am not to 
love myself at all, how much am I to love 
my neighbor? "It is more blessed to give 
than to receive." If, then, it is not blessed 
to receive, where is the blessedness of giving? 
"Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, 
the same shall save it." The life is of worth; 
it is not destroyed, but given; it is not given 
for the sake of giving, nor because we have 
learned not to prize it, but "for my sake"; 
and it is saved to the individual soul. 

There are those who have taught the an- 
nihilation of self as the purest and most ex- 
alted form of Christian doctrine. " Yet Paul 



76 Cbe %ove of tbe Tlfilorlo 



does not summon us to give up our rights. 
Love strikes much deeper. It would have 
us not seek them at all, ignore them, elimi- 
nate the personal element altogether from our 
calculations." " The more difficult thing still 
is not to seek things for ourselves at all." 
" The most obvious lesson in Christ's teach- 
ing is that there is no happiness in having 
and getting anything, but only in giving." 
This teaching may be pure and lofty, but it 
is not Christian teaching. Not only is it not 
the most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching; 
it is not in Christ's teaching at all. Jesus 
never taught anything that is unreasonable 
or impossible. To require that which cannot 
be done is to require that which ought not 
to be done, and the result is to debase char- 
acter, not to uplift it. If men accept in 
theory any other rule than that reasonable 
rule of right conduct to which every one can 
conform, they in fact release themselves from 
all obligation. They readily excuse them- 
selves for base living, because the thing 
which they conceive to be noble is beyond 
them. An impracticable law is practical 
lawlessness. 



5elf=Bbnegation 77 



Eliminate the personal element? The 
personal self is that to which all values stand 
related. To eliminate it would leave a value- 
less universe. If I blot out myself, and 
you blot out yourself, there is nobody left 
in existence. If there is no happiness in 
getting, giving resolves itself into this : for 
the sake of my own happiness in giving it, 
I give you something which wall bring you 
no happiness in getting it. This is the ex- 
treme of selfishness. Upon so vicious a circle 
do we start in trying to attain extreme un- 
selfishness by self-abnegation. 

We have indeed the utmost need to strive 
after unselfishness. How attain it ? Not by 
ceasing to seek or find profit and gratification 
for ourselves. The good God has made 
that impossible. Not one of us can live a 
day without seeking and finding profit and 
pleasure in the simplest and most necessary 
acts. How, then, become unselfish, if not 
by annihilating self? By remembering that 
I am one small self among myriads of other 
selves. How lightly weighs my good against 
that of a hundred others close about mel 
Let me not grasp after my own so eagerly, 



78 Gbe JLove of tbe TKHorlo 



hold it so near, that it will make me blind 
to all the rest. I would not prize less the 
things for which I long, but I would see 
more clearly how you prize the things for 
which you long. Oh, to see values not from 
the standpoint of one soul, but from the 
standpoint of many souls! Then would the 
demon of selfishness be cast out, then might 
one reach that glad, free, calm, and unfretted 
life which knows its great treasure, the 
happiness of the many, to be beyond all 
risk of loss, in the eternal purpose of God. 



Chapter XXVI. — Inasmuch as Ye Did 
it Not 

Master, I have this day broken no law of 
the ten, have hurt no one. Is it enough ? 

Child, there stood one at thy side burdened 
with heavy tasks of lowly, earthly labor. 
For a little help, a little easing of the burden, 
he looked to thee. Thou hadst time and 
strength. 

Master, I did not see. 

Thine eyes were turned within. There 



•ffnasmucb aa J2e 2>i& ft IRot 79 



was an ignorant one crying from out his 
darkness, "Will none teach me?" I have 
given thee knowledge. 

Master, I did not hear. 

Thine ear was dull. There came a guest 
to seek thy converse, a human friend in quest 
of fellowship. I marked thy sigh, thy frown. 
Why was thy heart not glad ? 

I was reading. I hate to be disturbed, to 
be called from great thoughts to trifling talk. 

The children would have had thee some 
few moments in their play. Without thee 
they went wrong — how far wrong thou wilt 
not know. It is too late. 

Child's play? But I was searching for a 
hidden truth of spiritual import. 

Thou didst not turn aside to lift that lame 
one who had fallen by the way. 

I was in haste to do what I had planned. 
I meant to help him when I should return. 

Another lifted him. And shall I question 
further? Dost thou not yet see? Child, my 
heart yearns over thee. Dost say thou hast 
hurt none to-day? Thou hast hurt many, 
and thyself not least. Not one of the ten 
laws hast thou broken ? Thou hast robbed 



8o Gbe TLove of tbe IHflorlD 



these thy brothers of that which I did give 
to thee in trust for them. In all thy eager 
grasping to save thy life thou hast this day 
lost it. Thou art smaller, poorer, blinder 
than this morn thou wert, after all thy read- 
ing, thinking, planning, doing.' Where, where 
this day has been thy loving? When thou 
dost ask, " Is it enough ? " there thou dost 
hurt me. Enough ? Dost thou then grudge ? 
Wilt thou weigh and measure ? Wilt thou 
bargain with me ? Art thou looking for a 
least requirement ? Child, thou grievest me 
much. 

Master, love me still and teach me, for I 
have the more need. 

Fear not; I will not leave thee. Thou 
shalt one day know what it is to love. 



Chapter XXVIL— Giving 

There is a pride which debases — the 
spirit which scorns or condescends to con- 
verse with an inferior. There is a pride 
which ennobles — the spirit which scorns a 



living 81 

mean act. Perchance the pride which de- 
bases is baser when it condescends than 
when it scorns. He who gives in conde- 
scension is too proud. He who will not 
take as a gift that which he needs and can- 
not get by his own labor is too proud. He 
who is ready to take from the product of 
another's labor that which he is too indolent 
to win for himself is not proud enough. 

Every man who is doing honest work in 
the world is giving. Some of us are getting 
far more than we are giving. Some are get- 
ting almost nothing. How things are to be 
made more even is the question. Whether 
it can be done by more giving depends 
upon the way of giving. 

Giving is not a condescension. I must not 
assume that because another man is poorer 
than I, I have a right to give him some- 
thing. To fling him an alms may be an in- 
sult. A gift may serve only to degrade him. 
Let me look carefully at myself, at him, and 
at the gift, before I dare bestow. Some of 
us have been too prone to think it quite 
proper that we should have most of the 
good things, and should bestow of our su- 
ii 



82 £be %ove of tbe TUUorlD 



perfluity upon the rest of mankind, while 
they, duly feeling their dependence upon 
our bounty, are grateful. Perhaps, were the 
situation reversed, we should not be so 
ready to accept it. We are very willing to 
take for ourselves the more blessed part, the 
part of the giver, and then to make a virtue 
of it. We expect others to be thankful for 
being in a position which we are glad we 
are not in. W r e talk quite glibly about " the 
lower classes," as if any one of us could 
define the lower classes. There are natural 
inequalities among men, since some are 
stronger, mentally and bodily, than others. 
But most of the inequalities are factitious. 
Since they have been made, they can be 
unmade. How often has society presented 
us the spectacle of a child of the lowest 
ancestry attaining wealth, power, learning, 
refinement, virtue? We are of one blood. 
There are no lower classes. 

" The rich and poor meet together; the 
Lord is the Maker of them all." And in 
what spirit shall they meet together to wor- 
ship their Maker? Shall the one say, "Sen- 
sible of my superiority, yet knowing that we 



<3ivir\Q 83 

are equal before God, I come down to 
worship with you. We meet on a level 
here"; and the other, "Sensible of my in- 
feriority, I yet make bold to worship with 
you " ? Such condescension and servility are 
more shocking here than anywhere else. 
Such a spirit shows an utter ignorance of 
true relations. It is to say, " There is a 
great, essential, and enduring difference be- 
tween you and me ; yet there is one ground 
upon which we can meet." It is to say that 
we are not of one blood. 

The truth is that our equality far tran- 
scends our inequality. Before the respect 
due to personality, all differences and dis- 
tinctions, natural and artificial, pass out of 
sight. Every person has the same separate 
existence, the same absolute moral sover- 
eignty, the same inalienable rights. 

Love is the heart and soul of all giving 
that is profitable to men. " Though I be- 
stow all my goods to feed the poor, and 
though I give my body to be burned, and 
have not love, it profiteth me nothing." It 
may also profit nothing those who receive 
the gift. It may be even ruinous to them. 



84 Cbe %ove of tbe Morlo 



He who loves will give nothing vainly, 
nothing proudly, nothing carelessly, nothing 
for the mere pleasure of giving. He will 
give not merely his spare pence, but his 
thoughts, his heart, his life. 

The one gift, after all, is the gift of a 
man's self for use and helpfulness. The rich 
man who gives much money with earnest 
care and thought to make it do the most 
good is giving himself. The poor man who 
can give no money, if he is giving faithful 
work, is giving himself. The gifts are sub- 
stantially equal. Hence disappears that 
seeming division into givers and receivers 
of charities. We are all givers, all of us 
who are honest and faithful. May the day 
come when the getting will be as equal as 
the giving is. 



Chapter XXVIII. — Competition 

Thou shalt not covet, but tradition 
Approves all forms of competition. 

Desire was implanted in our very nature 
by the divine wisdom of the Creator. There- 
fore none can say desire is sinful, but only 



Competition 85 



that indulgence of desire may, under certain 
conditions, be sinful. The desire to out- 
strip another in getting that which we can- 
not both have, may we doubt whether that 
also is natural and necessary ? Must it be 
our rule of life? Must we fight for the 
prizes ? 

The idea seems inconsistent with the 
thought that we are one family, children of 
a common Father. Surely, in a family it is 
not thought necessary or right to compete. 
If there are two children, and only bread 
enough for one, must each strive to grasp 
the whole, and must it go to the stronger 
and quicker ? Is this a law of nature which 
cannot be set aside without danger to the 
constitution of the family ? I will not dare 
to ask the deeper question how there can 
be an all-powerful and loving Father who 
provides but half enough bread. 

Are we in literal fact one family, children 
of a common Father, or is that but an im- 
perfect analogy ? One hesitates to say that 
the whole teaching of Jesus is based upon a 
figure of speech. No ; let us not say that. 
His teaching is simple and true. Both the 



86 Gbe %ox>c ot tbe THaorto 



broader and the minuter applications of it 
are extremely difficult and complex. The 
world has during these centuries been ad- 
vancing slowly and surely in making these 
applications. There were social institutions 
in the early centuries that were universally 
supposed to be natural and necessary, which 
our age has seen overthrown by this very 
doctrine of human brotherhood. Society 
has survived their overthrow. Men are to- 
day striving to work out new applications 
of the principles of Jesus. It may be that 
another generation will see results. It may 
be we shall one day cease to live by snatch- 
ing the bread from our brother's mouth. 
"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, 
which a woman took, and hid in three mea- 
sures of meal, till the whole was leavened." 



Chapter XXIX. — This World and 
Another 

" I am glad there is immortality, but 
would have tested it myself before intrust- 
ing him." Thus it is with us. " There is 



Gbis TMorlO and Bnotber 87 



immortality," we say ; " there is undoubt- 
edly." And then we fall a-doubting. All 
those speculative arguments with which for 
ages mankind have been trying to support 
hope do little to cure us of this habit. Nor 
can I think that we shall ever, by weigh- 
ing and measuring, prove the existence of 
spirit unembodied or disembodied. 

One thing at least is certain: there is 
something beyond, or there is nothing here. 
We have set our standard of values in the 
hope of immortality. All the satisfactions of 
this present life, sweet as they are, are in- 
finitely less than our craving. Perchance 
they satisfy the brute. We know not the 
mind of the brute. Is there for us anything 
beyond ? Since Jesus says our life does not 
end with the death of the body, I am con- 
tent to believe him in that as in other things. 

About the nature of the life after death 
we are told very little, chiefly this — that 
the character we form here we carry with 
us there. Had it been important for us to 
know more, it seems likely that we should 
have been told more. It is an unfit subject 
for dogmatism, but the mind inevitably 



Cbe %ovc of tbe morlo 



forms its conceptions, consonant with its 
ideas of God and man, its hopes, its long- 
ings, and its fears. 

Some conceive death as the entering of 
the soul into a haven of rest. Others think 
that we shall 



Strive and thrive, speed — fight on, fare ever 
There as here. 



" My Father worketh hitherto," says Jesus, 
" and I work." Shall we not also work ? 
Why should I think that I shall be at all 
different the moment after death from what 
I was the moment before ? And if we are 
the same, shall we not still need to be strug- 
gling upward, to help and save one another? 

Thou shalt be still a child of God as thou 
art here. What wilt thou have ? Rest ? 
Thou art even now at rest in the bosom of 
God. Joy ? Thinkest thou there is greater 
joy than the joy of serving ? Thou hast it 
here. Home ? " He that dwelleth in the 
secret place of the Most High shall abide 
under the shadow of the Almighty." Thou 
hast long dwelt at home. The presence of 
God ? He is all-present to thee here and 



Cbte llClorlD and Bnotber 



now. To behold his face ? Death will give 
thee no new eyes. Look, if thou wouldst 
behold him. Freedom from pain? Who 
knows if thou mayest have that ? If thou 
shouldst die to-night, wilt thou need no 
more refining in the furnace ? And even if 
thou sufferest no more, wilt thou feel no 
pain for others' woes ? Is it then freedom 
from sin for which thou art longing ? Who 
is Death that he should have power sud- 
denly to free thee from sin ? Art thou not 
gaining step by step a constancy in sinless- 
ness, and can it be won otherwise than step 
by step though thou shouldst die to-night ? 

And is this all ? Is there no consumma- 
tion, no " far-off, divine event " ? It is 
written, "There shall be no more curse." 
What does that mean ? I cannot tell what 
it means. He who wrote it seems to think 
there will still be some accursed. 

" In the dispensation of the fulness of times 
he might gather together in one all things in 
Christ, both which are in heaven and which 
are on earth." " He will swallow up death 
in victory ; and the Lord God will wipe 
away tears from off all faces." I dare not 
12 



9 o Gbe TLove of tbe HBlorlo 



say that these words mean what the heart 
could wish them to mean. Can God finally 
conquer even the most hardened ? We 
know not. How can we know when he has 
not told us? Could it be so, that were 
a home-coming indeed, perfect joy, tears 
wiped from off all faces. If it can never be, 
my Lord, I ask no perfect joy, I can con- 
ceive of none. If there be any yet in sin, 
thou wilt not cease to weep ; I ask to weep 
with thee. 



Chapter XXX. — The Kingdom 

The world is good; beauty and wealth 
and knowledge and power, they are all good, 
to be desired and to be enjoyed. What 
then? Get and keep and live at ease ? No; 
that is death, not life. Get and give, not 
get and keep, is the law of the universe. 
How ignoble that ancient conception of 
divinity, " the ever-living gods who dwell at 
ease." 

The man, that only lives and loves an hour, 
Seem'd nobler than their hard Eternities. 



Gbe IKtnQDom 91 



The Deity is not an idle monarch, pleased 
with contemplating his own glory, and creat- 
ing a universe of suffering and struggling 
beings to promote his glory and self-satis- 
faction. He is not content to abide in a 
blissful heaven. He is among us as one 
that serveth. Woe to that man who will 
not also serve, for he shall die. There is a 
kingdom, and it is coming. It is in our 
power to hasten it or to retard it, not to 
stop it. It is the kingdom of God and his 
loving subjects. If a man will take his place 
in that kingdom and work together with 
God and his fellow-men to put an end to 
sin and suffering, he shall live and grow, and 
he shall yet rejoice to see the kingdom come. 
If a man will cut himself off from that fel- 
lowship, and try to attain to something by 
himself, he shall fail. He may take his ease 
in his wealth, and care not who is poor 
while he is rich ; he may take his ease in 
his learning, and care not who is ignorant 
while he is learned ; he may take his ease 
in his religion, and care not who is lost if 
he is saved; he may take his ease in his 
virtue, and care not who is wicked if he is 



92 £be %ovc of tbe MorlD 



upright. He will lose his soul. Neither 
his money, nor his learning, nor his piety, 
nor his virtue, shall save him. There is 
no life for any single man apart from the 
life of all other men. Our own soul, our 
own family, our own church, our own coun- 
try, will not be safe till the world is safe. 
Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us not 
think that by shutting out what is corrupt 
we can keep sound that which is within. 
The law of the kingdom will not be broken. 
We are all bound together. If we will not 
lift our neighbor up, he shall drag us down. 
Would we be clean, we and our own be- 
loved? We must cleanse all the vileness 
in the world. 

The kingdom is surely coming, God's 
blessed kingdom of love and joy. O my 
soul, wilt thou have thy place within or 
without ? Choose between life and death. 
Arouse thee, work, for the time is at hand. 
" He which testifieth these things saith, 
' Surely, I come quickly.' Even so, come, 
Lord Jesus." 



